Ed Helms is a rising star in the comedy world. He is a regular on Comedy Central's The Daily Show and has recently made an appearance on Fox's Emmy Award Winning Arrested Development. The Comical sat down with Ed Helms after he performed a set at The Underground Lounge:
Comical: How has The Daily Show impacted your standup act?
Ed Helms: People now expect to see more political humor in my act. I was never very politically oriented as a stand-up before starting at The Daily Show. So the audiences' expectations are a little bit different. I've actually worked very hard to meet those expectations, because I think they're valid. I haven't altered my set just to appease the audience, but I feel that my job, which is very politically oriented, has helped me to bring that element into my standup. Which I'm excited about, because it's fun.
CM: Do you ever get sick of politics?
EH: I don't get sick of politics. I'm actually very infatuated with the political process. What I do get sick of is media coverage of politics. That is hard to overcome for everybody, not just someone that works in politics or works in something related to politics. The amount of media that people are inundated with, and I completely count myself as a participant in this media barrage, is very overwhelming. We're being force-fed so much information that it becomes nauseating at a certain point. The only value you can take away from it is not to believe anybody, and to evaluate the politicians on your own. So much of the news now is punditry and conflict and not content. One must block it out as a thinking citizen.
CM: What would you say is the best part of your job?
EH: Waking up in the morning with an occupation I'm excited about and proud of. In the entertainment business, we all kind of whore ourselves into various non-ideal situations. I feel lucky to be involved with something I'm really proud to be a part of.
CM: How did you get the job at The Daily Show?
EH: That was the peak of when I was doing stand-up in the city. The Daily Show had a sort of open audition with a casting company that I had dealt with. I read for the part, and got it.
CM: How much freedom do you have outside the show? I know you need to limit your exposure, but could you, say, grow a mustache if you wanted to?
EH: I could not grow a mustache, but that's because I'm not a very manly man, and I'm incapable of growing a mustache. It's funny you ask because I've always wanted a bad-ass mustache, and I've always felt a mustache would heighten my gravitas on the show and make me a better correspondent, but I simply can't do it.
CM: Has your vocabulary grown since you've started the show? Because you're using some words I don't understand.
EH: Nah. I've always been pretty facile with the vocab.
CM: The Daily Show takes up a lot of your time, which prevents you from doing some of the college gigs. Do you feel there are any other downsides to the show? Anything annoying or irritating about the job?
EH: Well… I hate everybody I work with. No, the most annoying thing is the location. It's in the middle of nowhere in Manhattan and it's a pain to get to. And I'm very happy to say that that's the most annoying thing.
CM: When you do interviews on the show, do people know you're not a real journalist and that you're just going to screw with them?
EH: At this point they all have, if not an inkling, then a full idea of what we're about. But what people don't know is what our angle is and what our tactics are. They might have seen the show and seen someone look silly on the show, but what I'm consistently amazed by is that everybody thinks that they, unlike everybody else, are immune to our powers of subversion, so people still agree to talk to us. Then often times during the interview they'll realize that they've underestimated us or they didn't realize how practiced we are at screwing with people. So people have some idea what we're up to, but not the nuts and bolts of it. Nobody knows the nuts and bolts of it.
CM: How much of the interviews do you write and how much do you improvise?
EH: Probably about forty percent is improvised. We do a lot of preparation and a lot of work, but you never know a person's personality or how they're going to be. And then a lot of times people give me these hilarious gifts and I'm like, "I can't believe you just said that. I'm going to go with that."
CM: How much time do you spend now, on average, writing standup?
EH: Not nearly as much as I used to. Not a whole lot of time. But now I've been improvising a lot on stage. Typically my standup writing process is haphazard, and I'll just think of funny ideas and work with them onstage. Over time a joke may really start to crystallize in a certain way, but I never really write it down.
CM: Do you ever wish you were a black man?
EH: Sometimes I wish I was Chris Rock.
CM: Do you ever hang out with the celebrity guests that come on the show?
EH: We really don't hang out per say. I generally meet them and we exchange pleasantries. I typically hook up with all of them.
CM: Does the show help you hook up with girls?
EH: The show would help just about anybody hook up with girls, but not me because I just don't have the mojo.
CM: What's the best story you have that came about through The Daily Show?
EH: I once got to ride in a pick-up truck with a New Orleans Swat Team as they shot rodents with rifles. But the coolest thing has been going to all the big political conventions and debates.
CM: Thank you very much Ed, this had been great.
EH: No problem. Just try to edit everything I said down so I sound smart.
Watch Ed Helms on Comedy Central's The Daily Show every Monday through Thursday at 11p.m. and again at 12:30 a.m.
